Were council secrets leaked to union boss?

The sexual harassment scandal involving San Diego Mayor Bob Filner may not be the only funny business at City Hall.

Troubling allegations have surfaced that suggest a dangerously cozy relationship between San Diego’s elected leaders and the public unions that represent city workers.

Herb Morgan, board president of the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System (SDCERS), alleges in a letter to City Attorney Jan Goldsmith that “confidential information” from a June 25 City Council meeting, closed to the public, was leaked to a top union official, giving him inside information about a proposed settlement of a lawsuit between the city of San Diego and SDCERS.

Morgan wrote that, in a phone conversation, Michael Zucchet, general manager of the Municipal Employees Association, “began to share information with me about what had occurred in the closed session meeting.” Among the confidential information Zucchet allegedly passed on: that the vote to instruct the city attorney to move forward with settlement negotiations “had been attained with [Councilman Mark] Kersey’s vote” and that Goldsmith’s office “had been given additional leeway” in negotiating a settlement. “I was shocked,” Morgan wrote, adding that he felt the fact that Zucchet was privy to this information “may put the city of San Diego at substantial disadvantage.”

Zucchet, in a letter to Morgan, says it was all a misunderstanding. There was no leak, he insists; Goldsmith told SDCERS and union lawyers that there were six votes in support of the settlement offer — and from that statement he deduced it was the five council Democrats and Kersey, as the only Republican “to publicly indicate skepticism” about pursuing further litigation. The same conclusion, he said, could have been drawn by “any close City Hall watcher.” As for Morgan’s claim that Zucchet told him Goldsmith’s office had been given additional leeway, Zucchet wrote, “that is simply false. ... On this point I am assuming that you simply misunderstood — as opposed to purposely misrepresented — our conversation.”

In an interview, Morgan said he came forward because while the information Zucchet allegedly passed on “is to my advantage, I want to win by being right, not by cheating.”

Tom Mitchell, spokesman for the city attorney’s office, acknowledged in an email to the U-T that the city has had problems with leaks from closed-session lawsuit discussions in the past. Even so, Mitchell said, the city attorney had told Morgan “that some of the information supposedly leaked was inaccurate and that he suspected Mr. Zucchet was bluffing.”

Nevertheless, the extremely close relationships between elected officials and unions in San Diego — both on the City Council and the school board — make Morgan’s suspicions reasonable. In some districts, candidates who win what might be called the “union primary” are all but guaranteed eventual victory. The warped allegiances that result from this fact bode terribly for good government.